Discuss the possibility of Drought being banned from the ORAS UU tier.

Use this thread to discuss the impact of Drought on the metagame. Talk about different teams/archetypes sun uses, along with potential checks/counters. State your opinion on wether it should be banned or not (having no firm stance on the matter is fine too).

All opinions are valid and discussion among players is not only allowed but encouraged, provided your opinion has solid reasoning and displays having played with and/or against Drought. 1 liners simply saying "it's broken" or "it's not broken" will be deleted.

Sun makes fire types hit harder. Most fire types in the sun are, on paper, impossible to counter bc of the dmg output of sun boosted+itemboosted Vcreate, Flare blitz, and fire blast. While the power of these attacks is significant, sun's biggest issue is that synergy is aways terrible. Ninetails on its own is a bad mon. When partnered with Victini and chandy, sun is under an intense amount of pressure to get ninetails in safely and go to a sweeper without losing momentum. The difficulty of doing this cannot be overstated bc these mons can't switch into anything that threatens ninetails. Couple that with the fact that none of them have over 100 base speed means that any sun team will be intrinsically very flawed. The only semi viable chlorophyl user is Victreebel which also has toothpick strength defense.

Most fire types in the tier are very good on their own and don't need to be bogged down by more fire type teammates due to how hard they are to counter already (see: Victini, Entei, HotRotom). While sun can give problems to slower teams that allow more free turns, there are an impressive number of very good fire checks who's presence make sun a liability. Mons like Salemence, MAero, Swampert, Victini, Hydreigon, Chandelure, MBlastoise, RotomH, Hippo, and sharpedo beat almost every sun sweeper(aka fire types...), while sun has almost nothing it can switch in to check them.

The standard build runs 2 fire types+ninetails+spinning+PhysicalGroundcheck+Victreebel(or an other type check support mon).
The problem with teams like this is that, while they may get a good matchup occasionally, more often then not; they are so one dimensional that the opponent has many weaknesses to leverage such as a lack of a dedicated lead, or a weakness to stone edge, or their own Victini, or a weakness to boosting sweepers, or priority. There is no way to cover all of these problems on one team. While sun is powerful, it's situationally useful in practice and therefore not broken

When partnered with Victini and chandy, sun is under an intense amount of pressure to get ninetails in safely and go to a sweeper without losing momentum.

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1 who the fuck users tini+tails+chandy, the core
2 ninetails can literally come in and be sacked off and you now have 8 turns of sun to go to pound town, have fun switching around LO darm or shiftry in the sun.

pretty sure you said "only slow teams have trouble vs sun" something to that degree and i'm still wondering how that is. I dont see how offense handles mega aero+shiftry but :/.

I'm going to start my post with saying something rather trivial, but I stand by: The picture that I sent you was better.

Now that I got that out of the way, let's move to the main point: Is Drought broken in UU? My immediate thoughts as someone who doesn't play UU all too often, but knows the metagame say "no", but that's a very simplistic view that just just looks at the surface of things without looking at any detail. After all, it can't be too hard to beat a Ninetales and some Grass types... right? Right? Well, not quite. The main thing with Drought teams is keeping Ninetales alive so that it can bring in sun multiple times, which to be honest isn't that hard to do considering all that really needs to be done is a switch-in and boom, seven turns of sun with a Heat Rock. Even with Stealth Rocks up, with proper EVing, one can switch Ninetales in for, at the most, four times, which equates to 28 turns of sun. Considering Sun is a very hit-and-run playstyle, it doesn't seem that hard to pull off.

Now that we established that all it takes to set up the sun is a working brain, we need to focus now on the abusers. The one that strikes out most to me is a Choice Banded Victini, a set that was already fantastic in its own right thanks to Victini getting high-powered moves in the forms of V-Create and Bolt Strike along with access to U-Turn. "Of course Victini's powerful, but it only gets 328 speed with a Band, Joey! And 299 if Adamant! Far below things that threaten it like Mega Aerodactyl." True, true, but have you taken into account the power of a Banded V-Create in the sun? Here's a few calcs on some of the bulkiest Pokes in UU.

As you can see, aside from Salamence, Victini completely mows through the strongest walls in the game thanks to Sun, even plowing through resists such as a physically defensive Quagsire and Mega Ampharos. However, this is just one Pokemon. Another Pokemon that performs similarly in the sun is Life Orb Darmanitan, being helped by the amazing Sheer Force coupled with Base 140 attack, along with a decent enough movepool of Flare Blitz, Rock Slide (helps handle Mence a bit better than Tini), and of course U-Turn if needed. Other notable Pokemon include Chlorophyll users such as Victreebel (Solarbeam + Weather Ball [Fire], Shiftry, and Sawsbuck (probably won't see it too often since Nature Power got shifted, but still decent enough), along with mainstay UU Pokemon that are free to abuse the weather, such as the aforementioned Victini and Darmanitan, as well as Arcanine on a Life Orb set, Chandelure with a Specs or Life Orb set, and of course Entei. As noted by the calcs for Victini, there's hardly any ways of being able to successfully wall it, with the only true stop to it being to change the weather with either Hippowdon or (if you run it for whatever reason) Mega Abomasnow (again, why?) or to wear down Ninetales, which wouldn't be that hard if hazards weren't easy enough to clear in UU (Mega Blastoise/Blastoise, Empoleon, Tentacruel, Mandibuzz).

Long story short, there are plenty of Pokemon that are able to take a hold of the sun brought in by Ninetales and cause complete chaos with it, namely Victini who is able to power through the biggest walls in the game in simply two hits. Although there are a few ways to handle it (priority galore, changing the weather), it's simply not enough to keep Drought in a state where it can be handled with ease. As such, I'd lean towards a ban on Drought.

1 who the fuck users tini+tails+chandy, the core
2 ninetails can literally come in and be sacked off and you now have 8 turns of sun to go to pound town, have fun switching around LO darm or shiftry in the sun.

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Ok so you sacked a mon to set another mon up. Thats pretty balanced. What sun team won't have 3 or more fire types on it? if you are just running nintails+tini it's not really worth running sun at all

@the victini clacs above. Going from nintails to tini is pretty hard to do when they have the same speed/type. Victini is good. Band tini with trick has almost no counters any way. If you have to switch into a band tini in the sun; you have played bad/had a bad matchup and deserve to lose a mon. The best mon in the tier (debatably Victini) Mence, is an excellent check to this exact strategy.

@Joeypals!!
you said sun is a hit and run strategy, but what opportunities does sun actually have to run to anything? Basically sun is a -hit as hard as you can- strategy that tries to patch bad team building with dmg output to beat teams that allow free turns

@the victini clacs above. Going from nintails to tini is pretty hard to do when they have the same speed/type. Victini is good. Band tini with trick has almost no counters any way. If you have to switch into a band tini in the sun; you have played bad/had a bad matchup and deserve to lose a mon. The best mon in the tier (debatably Victini) Mence, is an excellent check to this exact strategy.

@Joeypals!!
you said sun is a hit and run strategy, but what opportunities does sun actually have to run to anything? Basically sun is a -hit as hard as you can- strategy that tries to patch bad team building with dmg output to beat teams that allow free turns

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I'm aware that going from Tini to Ninetales is hard -- impossible, in fact. That's why you have support Pokemon on sun teams, so that you can switch out and get the Pokes out that you need to still take advantage of the sun. No one said BandTini was gonna be in for all those turns anyway.

See above for the second part. If you're running pure hyper offense with Sun, then you're doing it wrong.

I agree with most of what you said in your last post but that sorta tugs at the crux of my argument. You need those mons to pivot and support and generally do too much. Sun is on a timer but can't be totally offensive. Sun has wallbreakers but struggles to fit checks to most offensive mons. Sun doesn't have enough tools at its disposal to be traditionally broken bc of how flawed the archetype is. It is sorely lacking in boosting sweepers outside of bell. Basically sun is wayy too machup dependent to be considered overpowered. There are more than enough checks to the strategy that are legitimately top mons in the tier. Victini is borked in my eyes but that has little to do with sun and mostly to do with how hard it is to counter regardless of weather. Pairing it with nintails does make it do more Vcreate dmg, but teams are better off just covering its weaknesses so they dont get swept by all the common mons that threaten sun cores (Sharpedo, Mence, Tini, Any boosting sweeper, other weather). While applying offensive pressure is not always ideal, in this case, when more than half of your team needs to be devoted to fire types, spinning, and ground checks; it really is

Sun is on a timer but can't be totally offensive. Sun has wallbreakers but struggles to fit checks to most offensive mons. Sun doesn't have enough tools at its disposal to be traditionally broken bc of how flawed the archetype is. It is sorely lacking in boosting sweepers outside of bell. Basically sun is wayy too machup dependent to be considered overpowered.

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Sun is literally totally offensive; just because you're adding 1 somewhat fattish mon to cover a few weaknesses doesn't mean the team isn't "totally offensive"; ur just trying to not flat out lose to certain stuff. HO has wallbreakers but struggles to fit checks to most offensive mons, too.
The archetype isn't flawed, there isn't only 1 sun team lol. It doesn't need a ton of boosting sweepers, but Vic/Shiftry/Sawsbuck are some pretty damn good sweepers.

The 1 thing sun struggles with it is super fat stall. Sun sweepers demolish HO, and balanced teams are destroyed by sun's common wallbreakers. Sun isn't the only matchup dependent thing to ever be suspected, that doesn't make it any less broken.

Also, how is sacking a mon to set one up a bad thing? Last time I checked, memento+sweeper was a pretty damn good strat. Healing Wish also works in a similar way, and it's also a pretty useful move. If you can sack Ninetales and sweep your opponent's weakened team with a chloro sweeper, then that's a pretty good play.

Sacrificial plays are an example of high levels of risk/reward which is inherently balanced and should be encouraged. If you weakened your opponents team; you are already winning. You most certainly cant cover most of your weaknesses with one mon. Ground types like donfan make your team very week to Hydregeon, powerful water types, and special walls. Running mence makes any Mega aero 1hko almost anything on your team. Checking salemence is a near impossibility. Sharpedo can win/threaten to sweep, out speeds VBell at +2 (ties buck, resists sucker punch), and can stall turns with protect. Any chloro options are all grass types with no longevity and limited coverage (especially Buck, what exactly can it set up an sd on?).

There is not only one sun team, but they will almost always have the same type synergy making them easier to account for in team building. Offensive teams are able to keep pressure and offensive momentum with type advantages, defensive teams can exploit the fact that sun needs momentum to break them down and is not a long term strategy (early rocks, or protect, or rocky helm, Fat mence, Av Entei, Hippo, BulkyKrook+pursuit). While sun may sweep some commonly used balanced builds, it is threatened by top teir mons and cores that are very viable in uu

I still don't think a blanket on "Drought" is the entire answer to a problem with how ridiculous Sun teams can be in UU, but banning the auto start weather does give a bit more breathing room to actually deal with the strategy.

As it stands a simple pairing of Sunny Day + Heat Rock Whimsicott + Memento, free switch-in to whatever abuser you want to use (which also gives them a free set up turn of something like Swords Dance, Growth, etc., BECAUSE MEMENTO), and allowing Ninetales to be the back up or starter strategy to rinse and repeat it if 6-ish turns isn't enough to win the match/something managed to outlive the sweeper because some fat Mons exist in UU. I've complained about this to Nana and others before about the continued allowance of Drought/Heat Rock'ing itself, but it's pretty absurd when Victini/Darm at their strongest just can break through Pokemon with relative ease because even resisted by Water/Dragon types unless they are all for purpose bulky variants, are pretty fair 2HKOs, some even OHKOs, so no switching in, and if by chance it's just a 2HKO so the sweeper dies, the strategy has 3 other Sweepers to use. Alternatively if Drought it banned, just means if I want to run a sun team, dual wield Uxie (STEALTH ROCK BONUS) and Whimsicott, heck I could do it now if it weren't so easy to spam the start up weather + Whimsicott's lovely typing and Prankster Taunt/Support use.

Sun is literally a 2 set up, 4 sweeper strategy, just like rain, with Power and Speed abusers to make it pretty ridiculous. Unlike Rain whose abusers are all water related, Sun does have the love of Grass and Fire, and Grass has some really interesting and decent enough Dual Types to make it's part of the team even more of a threat to standard Pokemon in the UU metagame, a lot of the standard Pokes will have a variation of trouble. It won't cover everything, the strategies never cover everything completely, but it hits more than enough in the metagame that I think at least part of what makes it so easy to outright use can go.

The strategy is just simply pick between your two setters: Naruto Fox, Blind Pixie, and Faboulous Flowing Green Man. Choose your two RAIN OF FIRE DESTROYERS (preferably between): Victini, Chandelure, Darmanitan, Mega Doom, or Entei. Pick your two Grass types that give you more attack variation than the Fire types have (must have chlorophyll to actually be useful): Shiftry, Poison Plant of Choice (it'll be Victrebell anyway because it learns Weather Ball), or Deer. Just having Ninetales around means you have a Sun start fodder for the middle-sweep if needed, and it doesn't take up a turn of Sunny D like either Uxie or Whimsicott, which means you can't just stop the set up, it getting the turn and it dying the next to let it's role be fulfilled, and continue on. Teams really can't handle that, and it's pretty ridiculous it's been allowed for so long...and yet still no one actually abuses this awesome strategy that is completely legal as we have it.

The only issue I have with this strategy is that is that as you said, Victini 2hkos almost the whole meta even outside of sun. UU can handle fast sweepers with no bulk (sharpedo). But with the addition of trick and mixed sets it's not victini that pushes sun over the edge, but sun that makes victini way too good. Victini is the first and last mon on every sun based team (or any team), and its ability to cripple and beat counters with coverage makes boosting sweepers almost unnecessary in uu (@NananaBatman). It is head and shoulders above every other fire type (faster than darm and entei with almost twice the bulk of nape). Between energy ball, Bolt strike, and trick, it forces people to rely on revenge/pursuit which is the main reason why sun HO is effective. It keeps momentum while breaking holes in opposing teams and allows any fast sweepers to clean. You can not compare it to things like darmanitan (recoil/typing/speed bulk are all just worse) and other sweepers because it has the most power (+Atk VC=Neutral flare blitz), speed, bulk, and versatility . The flexibility to go mix or scarf or band is insane. We have other weather in the tier which is actually very good. I think maybe we are seeing this though too offensive of a lens bc we have all accepted the fact that this thing has no switch ins (Glaciate is a thing).
I don't think it's healthy to have a wallbreaker/pivot this good in the tier. While i recognize that this is drought we are suspecting here, it's important to discuss why this strategy can be effective despite being so flawed. I don't see the speed of cloro or the power of fire boosted attacks as a problem and they come with huge opportunity cost. We see similar sweepers with speed such as sharpedo and powerful threats like lucario or haxorus, who require much less support. But all of these threats are over shadowed but the complete goodness of the fire rabbit which is the beginning and end to any drought conversation and has been mentioned by everyone here.

If you're still using Victini in Sun you're doing it wrong; Life Orb Darmanitan is even better, simply because it doesn't suffer from speed drops after spamming fire stabs AND has a way around Rotom-H, Arcanine and Salamence, all things that bother Victini a fair bit. Bolt Strike is almost non-factor on Sun; even suicune is 2hko'd after some tiny prior damage (bolt strike from Victini won't ohko cune anyway, so this is just as good). Really, all u want to do is spam obscenely strong fire stabs, meaning Darmanitan is straight up better in this case. You pointing out Victini as the main problem makes me question your overall experience vs sun.

But all of these threats are over shadowed but the complete goodness of the fire rabbit which is the beginning and end to any drought conversation and has been mentioned by everyone here.

Victini can beat coon 1v1, Darm can not. Also trick is a thing that is way better then anything darm can bring to the table coverage wise. Darmanitan has none of the ways around bulky waters that tini does and is even more reliant on sun/spin support.

Basically none of the mons you listed above really can switch into Mixtini or band anyway. Are you really trying to say people aren't mainly using Victini as the most prevalent fire type on these types of drought teams? Scarf 100 base in the sun makes it a much more threatening sweeper/cleaner; outspeeding threats like mence, hydra, Darm, Jerachi, Haxorus, +1Sharp. That is like every good +1 speed mon in the tier, so to say that Tini is less viable then darm on any team in general is just wrong. This is a dumb wall breaker that clearly does even better than darm vs offense. There aren't really any good defensive answers to this thing and was it not you who said that sun can already destroy HO teams. Sun needs momentum to function properly. To say victini, as the best pivot in the tier, has no role in creating the free turns that sun needs just seems ridiculous. Whether that means getting a good matchup early game (by a double switch, turn 1, or resistances) and putting the user up a mon (no switchins) so they can afford to sack something later or fast uturns for safer switching. This sort of mon/wallbreaker is needed on sun teams which you yourself said do not really run boosting sweepers and can't always afford to get ninetails in. Have you considered how much better tini is at fighting other weather?

I don't know why we are suspecting drought when my metagme knowledge is clearly on trial here, but in the matches i have imagined, it often came down to losing momentum at some point even though I never let nintails switch in. There aren't really good switch ins, especially for offense, so most of the time you have to sack a mon. Even with a Pursuit bulky krook (it is very difficult to trap bc uturn) that can revenge (band)/switch into scarftini, often you find yourself having to sack things because of how easily Victini matches up with so much of the tier and its unmatched hit and run nature. You need to always save something that can beat it. Trading mons is not an effective strategy against a hyper offensive team. The threat of uturn, trick, BS, VC, grass knot is so huge that it forces the meta to be very offensive, which is where sun teams happen to excel. Sun teams support victini by putting fast cleaners along side it and making it a more effective offensive sweeper with scarf. The point, I don't see drought/sun as a problem here. What it supports is a mon with no switch ins that will continue to dominate the tier.

Why would you run scarf Victini in Sun even, the point of using a fire type on sun is to wallbreak, not sweep (not to forget how shitty of a sweeper Victini is thanks to the nature of V-Create).

252 Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Darmanitan Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Suicune in Sun: 172-203 (42.5 - 50.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Darmanitan is hardly incapable of defeating Suicune in Sun. Choice Band makes this even harder for Suicune, so you can run that if you're that much worried about Suicune.

Have you considered how much better tini is at fighting other weather?

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The only weather there is to fight is rain (hippo gets 2hko'd by sun's wallbreakers anyway, so it aint stopping much). Ninetales being able to stop rain simply by coming in makes things extremely difficult for rain teams. If anything tips the balance vs Rain as of right now, its Ninetales, not Victini.

Victini is NOT a pivot. Its defensive typing is poor and it's weak to SR, not to forget that it has no recovery at all. Just because it can u-turn doesn't mean it's a pivot. The 100/100/100 bulk hardly matters when you have so many crippling weaknesses. Besides, Darmanitan is also capable of generating momentum, since it also gets U-turn.

The meta is more than capable of handling Victini at this point. Sun DOES give it some absurd support, but that isn't exclusive to Victini, which is why Sun is being suspected. You can stop rambling on Victini now and focus on the suspect.

P.S: If you're looking for mixtini counters/answers, try Arcanine, Porygon2, Cresselia, Snorlax, Mega Ampharos or Mixed Hippowdon. Not gonna name offensive checks because there's a really good amount of them.

How is something that can use its bulk to live any neural hit, forces many switches, and uses those switches to either support its team or wallbreak not a pivot. Things are not pivots bc they get uturn. It's the best pivot bc it can win matchups and create momentum with its all around stats that you said don't matter.

You don't switch in Hippowdon on wallbreakers. You switch him in on ninetails.
Vicitini is helpful bc it can 2hko hippo without losing half its health or win 1v1 with grass knot. And it can do this outside of sun. Cleaners like bell need be running giga drain to do anything and even then cannot 1hko, so they really struggle to revenge/win 1v1 unless they have ideal conditions or momentum

To say that scarfed fire types in the sun is not a thing makes me raise an eyebrow.
Vicitni is a better offensive cleaner then darm especially in the sun. Between recoil and rocks and being slower, the threat of scarf Damanitan is not close to that of victini. Its very hard to pressure with a scarf and can get a kill every time it gets on the field with sun support. Between sun boosted VC and trick, it can wall break most of the tier. Being a larger threat to offense and less reliant on sun is some excellent gravy. This hit and run game is much easier with no recoil and is ideal for the sun archetype which tries the play very fast in order to capitalize on those 8 turns.

Mix tini often runs Energy ball or psychic and the other mons can only switch in with no sun support or after they know your set, which is very unhealthy.

Cleaners like chlorophyll mons are not unique to sun. MSharpedo does fill many of the same roles as most of them and is a better all around mon that needs little support. UU can handle fast attackers with no boosted attacks(weatherball lol). What it can't handle is S mons with multiple equally viable sets and no switchins

I'm not certain u understand how sun works at all; Fire types on sun are meant to wallbreak, no less no more. Slapping a scarf on Victini (or Darm) in Sun is a huge waste of wallbreaking potential. You cannot afford to "hit and run" with Sun offense, seeing as most sun teams do lack in bulky mons; punching your way through resists to open up for something else to sweep is what you're supposed to do. If anything, CB tini+scarf darm would work better.

Victini isn't the only mon in the tier that can get by its counters by running some other coverage moves/sets. Hydreigon, Jirachi, Infernape, Salamence and Lucario all have close to 0 counters, that doesn't mean they are broken. Last warning on the Victini rant.

The whole point of sun in UU right now is Wallbreak with Fire-type, clean with Chlorophyll. There's absolutely no point in running Scarf Victini or Darm on Sun when the goal is to wallbreak.

What makes Sun so effective is that there are next to 0 mons that can take a sun boosted move, then survive with enough health to stop Victrebel or Shiftry from sweeping later. This is especially when both of the Chlorophyll users can boost their Atk and SpA to +2 with Growth (hint: sharpedo can't do that) and sleep things (former) or Knock Off throughout the game (latter).

Also, the list of things that "beat almost every sun sweeper" is complete bullshit. Especially, when things like Swampert is listed. Most of those are at best checks to Darm / Victini, and most lose to Chlro sweepers, which is half of the power of a sun team.

You don't switch in Hippowdon on wallbreakers. You switch him in on ninetails.

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And that's a real good way to have your Hippowdon crippled by a burn or take ~40% from Fire Blast (or both I guess).

MSharpedo does fill many of the same roles as most of them and is a better all around mon that needs little support.

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No it doesn't. MSharpedo only has a single chance to use the speed boost to sweep, and it desperately needs a lot of physical walls weakened/removed before it can sweep. It's also significantly more frail, has no way to boost its Attacking stats, has a much less powerful priority move, and has no way to incapaciate mons like Victrebel does.

Sun in UU is a rather straightforward playstyle ; wallbreak with sun boosted fire attacks, clean with chlorophyll sweepers. The thing that makes sun so difficult to play against is the sheer power of sun boosted fire attacks (Banded Victini and LO Darmanitan come to mind), since sun allows them to break through the bulkiest of walls. It's extremely hard to prepare for UU sun because the amount of things in UU that can wall sun boosted fire types is extremely thin. Chlorophyll sweepers are icing on the cake, as they are almost impossible to outspeed and can hit pretty hard, allowing for an efficient cleaning of weakened teams.